My last visit to the Thinking Chair occurred on Sunday, Oct. 20. It was a bright, sunny day and there had been a frost during the night and this produced some interesting effects on the remaining leaves down in the meadow. The following Saturday was cloudy and very windy and on Sunday the temperature was 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which convinced me to throw in the towel. Migration was over and the few remaining birds of the meadow would surely be up at the house, so that was the end of another season of the Thinking Chair.

This required a change of venue for my bird observations and the kitchen window took over as the nexus of my birding universe. I had already purchased a variety of new feeders and feeder hangers and I happily set about the process of fine tuning everything. Which feeder would work best where? What needs to be cleared our of the way? What could be added to increase the fun and productivity?

The answer to that last question was fairly simple. I needed more perches for the birds in the relatively barren section of my deck where the best photography can occur. Last March I introduced you to what was then a brand new installation that I named the “Birch Perch.” This, quite simply, was a rather large branch that had broken off of a gray birch in my front yard. All I needed to do was position the branch in such a way that it would offer the birds a safe place to perch and survey the buffet; happily allowing me some great photographic opportunities.

Well, this year I had already been thinking about improvements as early as April and while doing some basic field maintenance I saved a couple of small maple trees that had to be cleared. One of the trees was about 8 feet tall, while the other was closer to 13 feet. They were alive when I cut them down and their leaf buds had never opened, which meant that the branches would be “fresh” and unlikely to suffer the sort of damage that the original Birch Perch had suffered during the winter. These maple trees had been stashed in a grove of white pines where they would remain safely out of the way for the summer. When I wandered over to collect the trees I found them springy and pliable.

Installation was simplicity in itself because the branches were not in danger of breaking and in less than 10 minutes I had both trees in position. Then I went into the house and declared the Birch Perch II season officially open.

The first of two porch railings is situated about 10 away from the window where I sit at a small writing desk and watch the winter birds. About 3 feet beyond that is the second porch railing that runs parallel to the first. In between them is a staircase that goes down to ground level in my back yard and it is in between these to railings that the little trees have been placed. This puts beautiful, natural perches in the close focus area of my telephoto lens, which is essential because the window that I am looking through is triple-paned. This creates some massive headaches for photography.

As long as the window glass is kept clean, and as long as the telephoto lens is held perpendicular to the window glass, then I can get some very nice shots. However, turning my camera so it is no longer perpendicular to the glass results in greater and greater interference. Ghost images can appear and multiple reflections can cause terrible distortions. The Thinking Chair does not have this problem and I am able to get some decent photos from distance. At the kitchen window anything beyond 18 feet results in photos that are so blurry that they are unusable.

I have already taken a large selection of high-quality photos that feature the branches of Birch Perch II trees, but the best one has to be that of a female Purple Finch that stopped and posed for a portrait on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Featured in a November column that I called, “The Guest List,” the Purple Finch is one of those species that will occasionally wander down out of Canada during winters when the Canadian boreal forest has not produced enough food. I shared a photo of a male in that particular column and now you can see a female today.

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The features to look for are the dark-brown streaks in the plumage. A female House Finch might have a somewhat similar appearance, but her feathers will be much lighter and drawn from a more gray-and-white palette. The female Purple Finch has streaks that remind me more of a chocolate brown. One other nice field mark that is shown very clearly in this photo is the top of her head where a slight “crest” is raised. Purple Finches can do this, but House Finches can’t.

So, the observation of birds and close-quarters photography is now officially underway and the results have been great. I know that these little trees are maples, but Maple Perch just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Birch Perch. While making preparations for this column I have already discovered something else that was really exciting, but I’ll have to save that for next week. In the meantime stay warm, stay safe and find yourself a window with a nice view for winter.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 27 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.